Summary
Also, John Powers reviews HBO Max's new drama series The Staircase, inspired by the true crime story and documentary series about the 2001 suspicious death of Kathleen Peterson.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Fresh Air, I'm Terry Gross. My guest, Alexander Scarsgard, stars as a Viking in the new movie The Northman. |
| 0:07.8 | Set toward the end of the 10th century, the story is based on Norse mythology. |
| 0:12.8 | In the HBO series True Blood, Scarsgard played Eric Northman, who became a vampire a thousand years ago when he was a Viking. |
| 0:21.0 | More recently, Scarsgard played an abusive husband in big little lies for which he won an Emmy, Golden Globe, |
| 0:27.5 | the Critics' Choice Television Award, and an award from SAG, The Screen Actors Guild. |
| 0:32.5 | In the latest season of HBO's succession, he played a tech billionaire. |
| 0:37.5 | Alexander Scarsgard grew up in Stockholm, Sweden, where he's joining us from now. |
| 0:42.5 | He's the son of the prominent actor, Stella and Scarsgard, who's appeared in movies, stage, and TV since the 60s, |
| 0:48.5 | and he's the brother of Bill Scarsgard, who's famous for his role as Pennywise, the dancing clown in the supernatural horror film It, |
| 0:56.5 | based on a Stephen King story. |
| 0:58.5 | Alexander Scarsgard had his first film role at the age of seven, and a film he made at the age of 13 made him famous in Sweden, |
| 1:06.5 | after that he took a seven-year break from acting. |
| 1:09.5 | When Scarsgard was growing up in Sweden, he watched Viking movies and learned about some of the mythology from his grandfather. |
| 1:16.5 | The new movie The Northman begins with his character as a young prince, who witnesses his father, the king, |
| 1:23.5 | be murdered by the prince's uncle, who then makes off with the prince's mother, the queen. |
| 1:29.5 | The boy dedicates his life to avenging his father, saving his mother, and killing his uncle. |
| 1:35.5 | The film skips ahead to 20 years later, when Scarsgard's character Amleth, as part of a group of marauding Vikings, |
| 1:43.5 | who plunder and burn villages, and slaughter the people living there. |
| 1:47.5 | As one character describes him, he's a beast cloaked in man flesh. |
| 1:52.5 | He acts like a beast, and he howls like a beast, as you'll hear in this scene in which the Vikings, on a night before a raid, |
| 2:00.5 | are doing a warrior dance chanting around a bonfire at night. |
| 2:04.5 | The chant turns into roars, and at the end you hear Scarsgard howl. |
... |
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